‘You’ll see in a little while.’ He led Justine and me through the gate into a garden that was mainly lawn to the front, apart from the swimming pool to the right. The house itself was splendid, as fine as any I’d seen in the area. It was two storey, stone built also, with a loggia over the entrance, and wooden shutters framing each of the small windows. Older Spanish houses were built to keep the sun out; now that there are things like air-con and heat-reflecting glass, the country’s architects have been liberated.
We followed a paved path round the side. As we turned towards the back of the house, we stepped under a pagoda frame with a canvas cover that was set up to shade a small patio. I almost tripped over a chair, a solid wooden white-painted thing, but grabbed its leg to save myself, then trotted on to catch up with Alex.
As I looked around, I saw that the ground at the back sloped downwards, and that the stone wall enclosed the property completely, save for a gate at the back. Only the area of the garden along the length of the house was level, with a mixture of lawn and paving. It was defined by a small wall, of white cast concrete pillars, with plant pots set on top at regular intervals a few metres apart. A middle-aged man was sitting on the wall beside one of them, sweat forming dark patches under the armpits of his green uniform shirt. I recognised him. His name was Gomez and he was an intendant from the Mossos d’Esquadra criminal investigation branch.
He blinked when he saw me. ‘Senora Blackstone,’ he exclaimed. ‘What connection have you with this?’
‘The mayor suggested that she come,’ Alex told him. ‘And. . well, she’s the mayor, OK.’
‘Connection with what?’ I asked.
‘Come and see.’
Gomez beckoned me forward. I approached him and as I did I could see over the wall, into the lower garden. Four crime-scene officers, in sterile tunics, were on their knees, searching the ground, square metre by square metre. Two paramedics stood off to one side, holding a stretcher, as if waiting to be called into action. At the foot of the steps that led down to the area, I saw a second uniformed officer: I had met him before too, Inspector Garcia, the intendant’s more abrasive sidekick. He and I exchanged not very friendly glances; and then the smell hit me, that and the buzzing of what sounded like a thousand flies.
I stood against the pillared wall and looked down. Beneath me, maybe three metres below, there was a rockery, with cactus plants in the sandy soil, and in its centre, teeth bared as if he was snarling, glaring up at me as he had in his office, lay the unmistakably dead form of José-Luis Planas.
Justine came to stand beside me, and gasped in horror, even though she had been told what she had been brought to see. ‘When was he found?’ she asked Gomez.
‘About two hours ago,’ he replied, ‘by his gardener, when he came in to check the watering system. Apparently it had been faulty for the last week or so.’
‘He’s been there for a while,’ I said. ‘You’d better move him pretty quick. I’ve seen this; I nursed in Africa for a while in a combat zone. Decomposition has a different timetable in the heat.’
‘So how long would you say he’s been here?’ asked Garcia, who had climbed the stairway. ‘Our medical examiner. . he’s gone back to his barbecue. . says at least three days.’
‘Then he’s a fucking idiot. . pardon my English. If he’d been here for three days in these hot weather conditions he’d be starting to go black; he might even have burst open. I’d say less than two days, that he died Friday night or Saturday morning.’
‘And you know better than our doctor, do you?’ he sneered. ‘It’s possible; his housekeeper comes in three days a week; her husband says that she was here on Friday, but that she has her own keys and often comes when he’s not here. So he could have been lying here all that time and she might not have known. The husband, the gardener, he was last here on Wednesday.’
‘In this instance, I do know better than your medic. I had a meeting with Senor Planas in his office. .’ I checked my watch; it showed 2 p.m., ‘. . exactly two days and two hours ago.’
‘And I had a visit from him in mine two hours after that,’ Justine added. ‘And I promise you he was alive when he left, frustrating as I may have found that.’
Alex winced. ‘What happened?’ I asked him.
‘The doc reckons that he probably had a heart attack and fell over the wall. The back of his head’s smashed in.’
‘He fell backwards?’
‘Seems that way. Accidental death.’
‘Yes, Sub-inspector Guinart,’ Gomez conceded. ‘That’s what we thought when you left to collect Senora Michels. But after you had gone, one of the technicians found this, grasped in his hand.’ He reached into his pocket, took out a transparent evidence bag, and held it up.
All I could see was white plastic. ‘What is it?’ I murmured.
‘According to Garcia, who says he knows these things, it’s part of a priest’s collar.’
Thirteen
Intendant Gomez said no more about his find. Instead he questioned Justine and me, courteously, about our recent difficulties with the late councillor. We told him how the situation had developed, how I had confronted Planas and how he had come up with his proposition.
‘I wish you had come to me with this,’ he declared, ‘and made a formal complaint. I would have started an investigation at once.’
‘And you’d have been tied in knots,’ the mayor told him. ‘That old man was as slippery as a shoal of eels.’
Gomez smiled. ‘I’m the son of a fisherman,’ he said. ‘My father was a trawler skipper, and I used to go out with him. I’m used to eels.’
‘Maybe not this one.’
‘We’ll never know now.’
He also asked me about Ben Simmers, and about his attitude to the demand for money. ‘He knew nothing about it,’ I told him. ‘He left all that side of the organisation to me.’ That seemed to satisfy him.
‘And you were going to pay the money? Such a ridiculous amount?’
‘It would have been worth it. . and afterwards I’d still have let the world know about it. I’d made no vow of secrecy.’
That was all he asked us. Matthew Reid’s name had never come up during our exchanges, and I saw no reason to volunteer it.
The interview had just finished, when we heard running footsteps behind us. Justine and I turned, just as Angel Planas appeared from the front of the house. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded, glaring at Gomez as he approached. Justine laid a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.
‘I’m sorry, Angel,’ she whispered, but he ignored her.
‘Come on,’ said Alex Guinart, to us. ‘You’re finished here. I’ll take you home.’
‘Why did you come for the mayor?’ I asked him, as we walked towards his vehicle.
‘Gomez asked me to,’ he replied. ‘When she told me about your trouble with the old guy, I thought it best to save some time by bringing you along.’
He said nothing more as we drove back. Justine sat in the back for a change, and I was in the front. We had almost reached the village when he glanced across to me. ‘When did you last see Gerard?’ he murmured, barely audible above the engine noise.
‘Today, in church.’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean when did you last see him before that?’ I frowned at him. ‘For Christ’s sake, Primavera,’ he exclaimed, ‘I’m not out to crack the case here. Gerard’s my friend too. Sooner or later those two detectives are going to be visiting every priest in this area, and I’d rather know whatever there is to know before they do.’
‘We had dinner together on Friday.’
‘Where?’
‘In La Lluna, near your office.’
‘Did you tell him about your problem with Planas?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘How did he react?’
‘How do you think? You know him; he was angry.’ I stopped short as I recalled his reaction to the story; that if Planas was a younger man, he might have taken off his collar. .